


The Wary Affair

by mayamaia



Series: Scenes from the Departure Desk [3]
Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-25
Updated: 2012-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:08:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayamaia/pseuds/mayamaia





	The Wary Affair

The tall man was focused, impatient and slightly aggressive. Marsha didn't like the way he was leaning over her desk.

"I need to know if a pair of ag... men have been through here. Blonde and brunet. Short." Marsha scowled, thinking she knew who he meant, and that the Twins were average height. "Names of Solo and Kuryakin." Yep, she was right.

"I'm sorry, sir, I've just come on shift." She hadn't, but she didn't want to make things at all easy for this lanky brute, whatever he wanted with the man who was her date that weekend. "Let me look through our records."

Marsha was making a show of pulling out the binder for the wrong week, and then accidentally looking at the flight the Twins had made a few days before, when she noticed the men in question returning to her desk.

 _Oh darn it all,_ she thought, and tried to catch Napoleon's eye without being obvious. But they were clearly absorbed in conversation. She was getting anxious when Kuryakin, laughing, raised his head to look at the desk. Marsha masked a shooing motion by pretending to flick lint off her other arm. To her dismay, the blonde must have misinterpreted because he gained a look of recognition and started toward the desk at a brisk pace, with Solo right behind.

Marsha dropped her pen, saying "Oops, clumsy me!" and while her interrogator's eyes were elsewhere, she emphatically shook her head at the Russian. He gave her a strange look and spoke aloud, giving away the whole game.

"Sean, what brings you here? I thought you were on desk duty for the month."

The tall man turned away from the desk and gave a sigh of apparent relief. "Thank God, Kuryakin, you would not believe the runaround this lady was giving me." Marsha attained a look of injured innocence to cover her private chagrin. She didn't know what fears had prompted her mistrust, but they seemed to be unfounded. Marsha thought of the fistfight the boys had been in when she was off duty one night last month. _Perhaps not entirely unfounded._

"Ah, well the ladies here don't like it when people get too interested in us. Anyway, like my partner said, Andrews, what brings you here? Or are you just here to see his pretty face?" Marsha was sure she must have misheard Napoleon.

"You grabbed the wrong cufflinks again. You would have gotten a bigger bang than you bargained for and besides Barclay is sick of you running off with his prototypes."

"Ah, well, I'm sure Illya was just in a hurry and grabbed whatever was closest." The men made a swift exchange of accessories and Sean Andrews strode away with the same impatient air he'd shown the whole time.

Napoleon leaned on the counter and thanked Marsha warmly for her protective instincts, implying that what he had already promised to be a delightful evening was going to be even nicer. Then the boys turned away and the receptionist saw her date lean over and say in a low whisper, "You grabbed those on purpose, didn't you?"

When Kuryakin replied with nothing but a grin, Solo shook his head and mockingly added, "Always looking for a bigger bang, Illya."

"Oh no, Napoleon," the Russian said, and his next words made Marsha blush. "That is your job."


End file.
